Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Topics - maru

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 13

News / Corona Technical Documentation Released!

« on: 2022-10-18, 17:41:09 »

With the release of Corona 9, we have also released the very first version of Corona Documentation!

You can find it here:

https://docs.chaos.com/category/corona

While we do have some of Corona's features explained over at our Help Center (https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us), the purpose of Docs is slightly different:

The Help Center content is like an advanced FAQ explaining how to achieve the desired results and avoid mistakes ("how to render volumetrics", "how to get rid of noise").
The Docs are a technical manual, listing each feature and covering its options one by one, with simple examples. Think of tooltips without the need to run the host software.

Currently some of the Zendesk and Docs content is duplicated, but we will fix this ASAP. We are also planning some other improvements.

Everyone is welcome to look around, and if you spot any mistakes or other issues, please do let us know in this forum thread or by submitting a support ticket at https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

[Max] Daily Builds / Chaos Scatter Edge Trimming Playground!

« on: 2022-09-30, 14:38:39 »

Corona 9 RC1 comes with a new Chaos Scatter Edge Trimming feature!

Where to find it?
It's a new ChaosScatterEdgeTrimming map you can find in the material editor under the Chaos Scatter category.

How to use it?
You need to plug your Edge Trimming map into the opacity slot of the material of the object that you are scattering (in case of multiple objects - you need to plug this map into the opacity slot of every material used). If any part of the instance (any mesh element) falls outside of the area specified by the scatter, this part will be invisible. This area area can be specified using:
- The distribute-on target object itself (in case of scattering on a plane object, any instance part outside of the plane object will be invisible)
- Include splines (any instance part outside of the include spline will be invisible)
- Exclude splines (any instance part inside the include spline will be invisible)
There is no need to enable any special options in the Chaos Scatter object itself.

Where is this useful?
- Grass lawns - in case of using large grass clumps, no grass blades will be growing outside of the defined area (defined by the distribute-on object or by include/exclude splines)
- Carpets - in case of using large clumps of strands, no strands will be placed outside of the carpet area
- Pebbles, rocks, bark chippings, or any other objects which you need to distribute within some specific boundary and make sure no instances stick outside of that boundary.

What are the limitations?
- This feature comes with a certain precision. In case of distributing a model consisting of a lot of elements (think 10 000 elements or more), it would be too slow to check the position of each one of them. This means that trimming works best with models consisting of as few elements as possible, but at the same time, this limitation should not be a problem in usual scattering scenarios (scattering grass, trees, rocks, etc).
- When the distribute-on object is smaller than the model object itself, some issues may appear where the instances would stick outside of the expected area. The solution in this case is to make the scattered instances smaller. This also should not be a problem in usual use cases, because in practice it would mean having a smaller grass lawn area than a single grass patch.
- Currently, you need to manually (or using a script) connect the Edge Trimming map to the opacity slots of each of the materials you are using for your scattered instances. This can be challenging, especially in case of scattering models with many different materials. We are planning to improve this workflow.

Edge Trimming on:

Edge Trimming off:

[Max] Bug Reporting / How to report bugs to us

« on: 2022-08-26, 16:07:36 »

To report bugs to us, please use either of the following methods:

- The helpdesk ticketing system at https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

OR

- The forum section related to the version of Corona that you use:
3ds Max / Corona Core : https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?board=2
Cinema 4D: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?board=36

Once again, that's an "OR" - use the helpdesk ticketing system, OR report on the forums, not both please (which will actually only slow things down, both in terms of us being able to fix the issue, and in being able to respond to you promptly)

For more information on bug reporting, including how to make your report as useful as possible for us so that we can resolve it faster, please see:

For 3ds Max:
https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/articles/4649117083409

For Cinema 4D:
https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/articles/4648898278545

Thanks!

[Max] Daily Builds / Chaos Corona 9 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Changelog

« on: 2022-05-27, 17:03:07 »

For all information about the daily builds and the download link, see: Daily Builds FAQ

[C4D] Tutorials & Guides / Chaos Corona 8 for Cinema 4D Help Center Guides

« on: 2022-04-27, 15:57:26 »

[Max] Tutorials & Guides / Chaos Corona 8 for 3ds Max Help Center Guides

« on: 2022-04-27, 15:38:30 »

[Max] Daily Builds / Corona Curvature Map playground!

« on: 2022-01-27, 14:13:18 »

We have the long-awaited Corona Curvature Map in our newest daily build!
You can check the full changelog and grab the installer here: https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=33839.msg194357#msg194357

This is an early implementation and it may still change based on your feedback, so please let us know what you think about it, what is great, and what isn't.
We are also very interested in the differences you notice between the Corona AO and Curvature, and when exactly you would choose to use which.

Basic usage:
Create a new Corona Curvature Map in the material editor.
Plug it into any material property you wish, or use it as a mask to mix various properties/materials.

An example where AO and Curvature produce a similar result:
https://corona-renderer.com/comparer/ZYyww6

An example where AO and Curvature produce a visibly different result:
https://corona-renderer.com/comparer/fHEmkv

[Max] Daily Builds / Corona Renderer 8 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2021-07-21, 18:01:21 »

Corona Renderer 8 for 3ds Max daily builds discussion.

*You can always get the newest daily build in the usual location: [link]*

[Max] Daily Builds / Corona Renderer 8 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Changelog

« on: 2021-07-21, 17:56:56 »

~~*You can always get the newest build at the usual location [link]*~~

EDIT: We now distribute the daily builds through gdrive, the folders can be found here Daily Builds!

[Max] Daily Builds / The new Corona Converter feedback thread

« on: 2021-05-18, 11:48:11 »

One of the major features of the upcoming Corona Renderer 7 is the new Corona Physical Material. With the introduction of this new material, we also had to update our Corona Converter script.
This thread is intended for collecting feedback on everything related to the new Converter script (its functionality, features, issues, what you like about it and what you don't like).

More about the Corona Physical Material:
https://blog.corona-renderer.com/behind-the-scenes-the-physical-material/
https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=31802

What you need:
- Corona Renderer 6 (to see what the render looked like before the conversion) - https://corona-renderer.com/download
- Newest Corona Renderer 7 daily build (to convert the scene and check the conversion results) - the link to download the newest version is at the top of the newest post at https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=30876.0
- If you just install Corona 7, the converter script will be available under the right-click quad menu as usual. If you are using some alternative installation method (i.e. you do not copy any files into your 3ds Max installation directory), then you can find the new converter script in \Corona Renderer\Autodesk\3ds Max 202X\scripts\CoronaRenderer.
- Before testing, make sure that you are using the converter script version 1.51 or newer! (it is printed in the title bar of the converter window)
NOTE: When using daily builds, the usual precautions apply! Backup your scenes!

What we are especially interested in:
Corona Legacy Material to Corona Physical Material conversion. This is the most important thing for us.
- How similar are the conversion results?
- How complex are the resulting shading networks in the material editor?
The easiest way to test both those things is opening a scene created in Corona 6 in Corona 7, converting it, and rerendering it.

What else is important:
- We improved the conversion of VRay2SidedMtl to CoronaPhysicalMtl. If you have a scene where you used the VRay2SidedMtl, please test this, and let us know if anything does not look or work as expected.
- Please check that all buttons in the "Tools" section of the Corona Converter work as expected. While this may sound like something our internal tests should take care of, there are always some edge cases which we might have missed, so we appreciate testing even very basic features like this.

Known issues and limitations:
- We know that the shading networks created by the Corona Converter might be quite complex in some cases (especially when many texture maps are used). If you have some ideas how to simplify such cases once you encounter them, please let us know.
- The newly created CoronaPhysicalMtl will only use those parameters, which were also available in the original material - i.e. if the original material did not feature sheen or clearcoat (which is the case for CoronaLegacyMtl), the converted CoronaPhysicalMtl will not use neither sheen nor clearcoat parameters (you can, of course, enable these parameters manually).
- It is possible that we changed some MAXScript function names which our users may want to use (i.e. broke the MAXScript API described here: https://www.racoon-artworks.de/CoronaConverter/mxsDocumentation.html ). The reason for this is that we used our coding conventions during the last rewrites of Corona Converter and therefore we changed some function names which weren't conforming to these conventions / weren't descriptive enough. If this proves to be a significant and commonly encountered problem, we may revert some of these changes.
- We are planning to remove some legacy options / buttons from the Converter. If you rely on the removed functionality, we will consider reverting some of these changes.
- We do not support conversion to CoronaLegacyMtl anymore. The materials are always converted to CoronaPhysicalMtl.

Additional notes:
- Vray Mtl to Corona Physical Mtl conversion may currently not be working perfectly, but big improvements are coming!
- Specular to IOR conversion is a work in progress

If you have any other notes / remarks / complains - please do let us know.
Thank you in advance for your feedback!

[Max] Corona Goodies - User Contributions / IR PowerUP - A tiny IR helper script

« on: 2020-09-23, 19:06:08 »

DISCLAIMER:
I wrote this script as an exercise, as a private person, it is completely independent from the works of the Corona Team. This is a private, for fun, after-hours project. It is absolutely unofficial, provided as-is, and does not come with any kind of warranty or support.

What is it?
It is a floating window with a collection of various tools / settings which you hopefully may find useful when using Corona's IR.

How to use it?
Step 1: Back up your whole scene, or at least render settings. I mean it. I don't take any responsibility in case your scene gets broken (e.g. your current render settings, including camera settings, disappear).
Step 2: Click buttons.

How does it work?
It modifies some render settings and 3ds Max Environment settings. It does not modify any magical settings which are normally hidden from the user.

[Max] Daily Builds / Corona Renderer 7 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Discussion

« on: 2020-09-16, 17:06:39 »

Corona Renderer 7 for 3ds Max daily builds discussion.

*You can always get the newest daily build in the usual location: [link]*

[Max] Daily Builds / Corona Renderer 7 for 3ds Max - Daily Builds Changelog

« on: 2020-09-16, 17:03:48 »

*You can always get the newest build at the usual location [link]*

[Max] Daily Builds / New bloom and glare playground!

« on: 2020-06-04, 17:20:00 »

In the newest daily build of Corona Renderer 6, we have brand new lens effects!
You can find them in the VFB Post tab, and then tweak your bloom and glare using the built-in aperture editor.

Share your results, ask questions!

Download and more info here: [link]

Some examples:

[Max] Daily Builds / Improved Sun & Sky model playground!

« on: 2020-04-29, 15:15:30 »

From the Corona Renderer 6 Daily Builds Changelog:

Implemented new and improved Sun & Sky model
- Supports sun below horizon
- Current version does not support turbidity, but it will be added in next iteration of this model
- Can be selected by using "Improved" sky model in CoronaSky map (this is now the default)
- Can be selected by unchecking the "Use legacy color" checkbox in CoronaSun (legacy mode is available only in old scenes)

Give it a try and share your results!
Download here: [link]

Disclaimer: it looks crazy good. Keep that in mind!